


^V^^'i"' 



F194 
.M143 







'O' 












,> .. \'^''^'\/ %'^^/ V-^^°\/ V^%°^ V-* 

Q^ _ o " a _ 





























^•^^ " oho'' ^ O^ ♦,, 







4 o 



o_ *'•' 



.^^""^^ -^ 



o>.,- '> S 



4' 



q, *,,■,•' j,0' ''^ *.7o|< 









0_ * ''^-: 



c- ^ , '-y 







■-^•' aO 



/% 



%.^' 







o V 







•^0^ 






• I 1 ■ 





5) »*'^% > 

















"'S 








■»». 





O.I.' \&^ 

•^ %.^^ ,vA«= \/ '^^'- "' 

0^ c' 








^ V 













A'^^'V 



















,^^'.iU 



V „0 






^°-^^, 















■/ 



Sllff Nattanal (HupxUl 

By HENRY BROWN FLOYD MACFARLAND 
President, Board of Commissioners, District of Columbia 



Sppnntfb from tijp ^nuiifttir Inlmtw prp|iarfli 
fag \\\i Sank^ra AsBoriattott nf X\\t itatrut of 
(dolmnbia for tl|p Am? man lank^ra Aaaonatum 



Waalitttgtnn 
1905 



Washington, City and Capital 





cLuiJLi_rni_DoV'V 

JDDi'CDCLO fali\JLDL-DL^L'C 



C CJDUUU ^ 

i^C CGUDU L 
jCCCJDDDDC 

^ Ljc racuDQ c: 
cacuoc-Jt^-iicjDc 



J QOHJt; CUM 

].'Ca UDL= 

JO.IFiDUOn 
J CD ccjuui— 
;] oo GOO u(-^ 

-^ ^ t-^D tjtiaao Q aQQOUtJ 



;;^o Dccccr 

CL VOUt' CO 






OC /COD' C a^ 

□ £7 ceo O ^[] ^^ 



• G OC3^ ^ C O 



□□DDCQt^' CDCP.C 

VfiCQECCC ecu 
^Dt-^CEUC DDD 

iCLCCD.- 





ccDDDD^C^If- J'Cr£lDDCDDDDCDaDD 

FZCDGDDf'jlE 
ooDc^acD rj— 

Di^DDCPitPJIC 

GDJJDD §?Sr 

«CU -g - 

DDr«D.aca 

CC DDCi CD 
Q DDDC « 

GUDD^Ctl CD ;j 

□ 'iCD,. C 




to 



o 



O 
< 



o 

1- 
O 
z 

i: 



o 

>- 

U 

X 
H 

u_ 

O 

z 
< 

□_ 







o 
I- 
o 
z 

I/O 

< 



o 

>- 

H 
U 

LU 

1- 

u_ 

o 



> 




THE NATIONAL CAPITAL 



THE Nntional Capital was founded by George 
Washington, who planned "the Federal City" 
which Congress named for him. Last of his 
great deeds, this interested him more than any other 
after the winning of the Revolution and the making 
of the Constitution. Like the Constitution itself, its 
creation was closely related to the finances of the 
infant republic. The very idea of a federal district 
absolutely under national control for a national 
capital was suggested by the attempt of the unpaid 
soldiers of the war of the Revolution to collect 
arrears in 1783, by an attack with arms which 
frightened Congress out of Philadelphia. 

The Federal District was placed on the Potomac 
as the price to the South of the assimiption by the 
Nation of the state debts of the Revolution as desired 



74 The National Capital 

by the North, under the famous agreement between 
Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Robert 
Morris, the financier of the Revolution, linked by his 
personal speculations in the real estate of the new 
capital, the eighteenth century with the nineteenth, 
as Jay Cooke, the financier of the Civil War, whose 
brother was the first Governor of the District of 
Columbia, linked the nineteenth century with the 
twentieth. The Federal Treasury, with its connec- 
tion fir?t with United States banks and later with 
the sub-treasuries and the national banks, has been 
the center of the financial interests of the country. 

The young national government was penniless 
when George Washington established the National 
Capital. He had to beg personnally from the nine- 
teen original proprietors of the farms upon which 
"the Federal City" now stands, the land needed by 
the national government for its buildings and for 
streets and parks, and he had to sell some of this 
land and to borrow money from Maryland and 
Virginia, the mother states which had ceded the 
sovereignty of the ten miles square, to build the 
President's House, Congress House, and the other 
government buildings. The far-seeing Washington 
planned the city on a grand scale, according to his 
faith in the perpetuity and development of the 
United States, then so small, so poor, that the men 
who doubted whether the new government could 
long survive found many to laugh with them at the 
plans which the experts cannot now improve upon 
and which record Washington's genius as books can- 
not do. The first great expansionist, the only great 
American who had been west of the Alleghanies, 



x«l 



BAf VE 



The National Capital 75 

the man of greatest vision in his time, and with the 
most confidence in the vitality of the young republic, 
he planned a national capital for the greatest country 
in the world. 

Washington died in 1799 without seeing the 
national government moved from Philadelphia to 
Washington, where it came, under President John 
Adams, the next year. The death of its founder 
prevented the national government from beginning, 
as soon as its increasing income justified the expendi- 
ture, the development of the National Capital, on 
the plans which he had laid down. By the time 
the United States could no longer plead poverty it 
had settled in a habit of neglecting its capital, and 
had thereby encouraged an agitation for the removal 
of the capital to the Mississippi Valley, which never 
ceased until after the Civil War, and, which in turn, 
prevented proper treatment of Washington. Indeed, 
for seventy-eight years, beyond building structures 
for its own use, improving their grounds, and build- 
an aqeduct primarily to supply them with water, the 
national government did practically nothing for the 
National Capital. The people who lived here had to 
bear all the rest of the expense of the making and 
maintenance of the National Capital. At times they 
went deeply in debt in the undertaking. The burden 
became so heavy by 1846 that Alexandria, George 
Washington's market-town, procured the retroces- 
sion of the territory Virginia had given south of the 
Potomac. The task of the nation was too great for 
the people of the District of Columbia. The Civil 
War, which made Washington as the seat of 
government and a prize of the strife at once far 



76 The National Capital 

better known and far more precious to the victorious 
Union, ended all serious talk of removing the capital 
and brought the national government to realize its 
obligation. 

President Grant and a congress of like politics 
gave power to a new government of the District, 
with Alexander R. Shepherd, a native Washington- 
ian of talent and force, as its ruling spirit. In 1871 
it took up the dust-covered plans of George Wash- 
ington, and began the general improvement of the 
streets and avenues of Washington City. The time 
was short and the work was done hastily and 
roughly, (the city was only plowed up,) but so 
thoroughly that it was easier to complete it than to 
undo it, and all the subsequent development has 
come from it. 

The protest of the District tax-payers, still 
expected to pay for such improvements and griev- 
ously overburdened, the panic of 1873, and a change 
in the political control in Congress, ended the 
"Shepherd regime," with its territorial form of 
government and its two Governors, Henry D. 
Cooke and Alexander R. Shepherd. This was the 
first executive government for the entire federal 
District. The cities of Washington, Georgetown, 
and Alexandria had had separate municipal govern- 
ments, with Mayors and Councils elected by quali- 
fied voters, while the counties of Washington and 
Alexandria had county governments. 

From 1874 until 1878 Congress was considering 
a permanent form of government, meanwhile con- 
fiding the administration to a temporary Commis- 
sion of three. Congress in the exercise of its con- 



The National Capital 77 

stitutional power "of exclusive legislation" over 
the District of Columbia had to provide an execu- 
tive (government; it had to provide for a just recog- 
nition of the duty of the National Government to its 
Capital, and of its obligation as the owner by gift of 
more than a half of the city of Washington. It 
determined that there should be an executive gov- 
ernment of three Commissioners, two appointed by 
the President of the United States from residents of 
the District, and the third an army engineer of high 
rank, and that the United States should pay annually 
one-half of the municipal expenses and should 
assume one-half of the bonded debt incurred by the 
territorial government. It made no provision for the 
Nation's arrears estimated at seventy-five millions. 
The property holders generally wished to relinquish 
the suffrage exercised until 1874, and Congress, 
appreciating their reasons and also regarding it as 
incompatible with the new financial arrangements, 
since the United States could not submit to be taxed 
by District voters, abolished the privilege of voting. 
In June, 1878, the act which the United States 
Supreme Court terms "the Constitution of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia," was passed, and since then the 
entire District has been under the executive govern- 
ment of the Commissioners, which is actually a 
government by public opinion, as there is no partisan 
politics, no "boss," or "machine," or partisan news- 
paper, to confuse or defeat the voice of the people. 
Although there is general hope that som.e day Sena- 
tor Hoar's proposition to have the National Govern- 
ment bear all the expenses of the National Capital 
over and beyond what the District residents contri- 



78 



The National Capital 



bute under reasonable average taxation, the "half- 
and-half plan " is so great an improvement on the 
conditions preceding it, that it has been generally 
acceptable both in Congress and in the District. 
Modern Washington and its suburban towns have 
practically developed under the present form of 
government. The progress made in twenty five 
years is the sure prophecy of the progress to be 
made in the future. The National Capital, now 
that it has been fully taken into the life of the 
nation, must grow with its growth — as the country 
deserves. The population of the District, number- 
ing over three-hundred-twenty thousand, with a tax 
levy of about tlve-and-a-half million (under a dollar- 
and-a-half-a-thousand rate and a two-thirds assess- 
ment,) is doing its full share for the present and for 
the future. As it increases and spreads all over the 
hills of the District, until the city of Washington 
extends to the District line, it will do its part in 
making this more and more the most beautiful 
capital in the world. 

HENRY B. F. MACFARLAND 




MB, 3 14 




















V. "^ ,r 
•>i^ a'*' 'V 













?^k^ %,^ ; 












V^^ 



O^ '>^i^.- „0^°'\ '*!'P^-<'^ ^: 



"^^' 
.<^^^ 




"^ <>" :% 










^^PS^ 






''^^• 
•y-^. 






'^ cv^v. V„.' ^*>^^^:' "^...^'^ ol'^l:^''^ 
















.«iq* 



O^ • o , ' ^^O "%j> 















'^^r^< 










f ^%^ ^yj%Y^* >- --^^ '^'sm^.^' ,^^^ -*. 













.^ o_ 





.*^ 



.'io.^ 



^*> •!.*.?' -^ V" »i.:rl'* <^ J> '1*°' > 




^°-n^. 



\* .. -1- "" f° ^ 

























5°^ 






0' '^^ *.,,.• ^V 






f ■ OOBBS BDOS. 

^- LIBHAHV aiNOINO 




L^^ O. 












i^S-^Ji^V.-J] « 



-'<:,^^' 



y ^c. 



swir,* o^* ''vj. ". 



